The Pit
by MariaShadow
Summary: G1 Desperate times make for strange bedfellows


How long he had lain here, the warrior did not know. At times there was light, at other times darkness, but the durations were too random for them to be any proper measure of time. Occasionally he sensed movement, sounds that may have been voices, pressures against his armoured form that could have been hands. But without even half his sensory capability, the truth of the matter could only be guessed at.

It was one of the light cycles when he realised there was something different. Systems that had long been dormant were now fluttering into activity, feeding information on his location into his CPU. He pounced on the tidbits like a starving cyberwolf on wounded prey, hungrily assimilating every byte of data.

"Hey, he's alive!"  
A voice, deep and resonating. Male, and Iaconian by the slight inflections on the vowels. Autobot?

"You sure? Looks like he's scrapped to me."  
Soft and low, female. And the accent…Heliohex? A Decepticon?

"He is alive, trust me."  
Male, definitely from upper Iacon.

"Hey, can you hear me?"  
Another female, can't place the accent. Wait a nano…a hand? In mine?  
"Squeeze my hand if you can hear me. That's it. Can you fully activate your optics?"

A mental command slowly forced the irises behind the optical glass to focus, admitting light to the delicate systems and letting the mech properly see for the first time. A femme was leaning over him, perhaps aquamarine in colouration under the layer of soot and grime. Her optics told him all he needed to know. Autobot blue.

With an effort, he flicked his gaze to the three others standing above him. Two male Autobots and a Decepticon femme.

"Where…?" The rest of the question was lost in a static buzz, long unused vocal systems protesting the flow of energy. But the mis-matched quartet understood well enough. One of the mechs crouched next to him with a sardonic grin. "Welcome," he said, waving one hand at the surroundings, "to the Pit."

0o0o0

A breem or two passed, during which time the warrior felt himself slowly growing stronger. The two mechs, some kind of medical technicians as far as he could tell, worked on getting him mobile while the femmes appeared to be standing on watch, makeshift weapons in hand.

One of the mechs rocked back on his haunches. "So, you got a name? Or do we just go around calling you 'Decepticon' until it irritates you like we did with Crosscut over there?" He asked, gesturing to the red-optic'ed femme. "I'm Longwatch, by the way, this is Slipstream, and the other lady is Coil."  
"Fastbreak." He croaked in reply. "What the slag is this place?"  
Slipstream shrugged. "Fragged if we know. Personally, I was hoping you knew something. By the looks of you, you'd been here for a lunar or so before we found you."

Fastbreak's brow furrowed in concentration as he attempted to dredge up the last intact memory from before his unexpected shut down. "Last I know I was on base. The alert sirens went off, and then I was here."  
Longwatch nodded slowly. "Attack and memory loss, just like us. Ah well." He shifted to a more comfortable position. "Basic run down- we're underground in some kind of giant maze-like thing. There's buildings, bridges, streets and tunnels, and so far we know of about a thousand-odd others running around down here. We come across caches of energon and other supplies, and occasionally newbies like you. For the moment, we're all sticking together for protection, 'cause Transformers aren't the only things included in that thousand-odd population and most of them aren't too friendly."

"We had an organic wandering around with us for a few lunars." Slipstream spoke up. "Some sort of feline thing. We never did work out it's language."

"Anyway, I peg this on the Quints." Longwatch continued. "Why they did it, I don't know. But it's probably them." He turned his attention back to Fastbreak's leg, adjusted something, and sealed up the panel. "That should do. Can you stand?"

Fastbreak grunted an assent and slowly clambered to his feet, waving off the proffered hands of the two Autobots. The shock was still wearing off. Here he was, a base commander, plucked from his place and dumped in this… well, it was a pit really.

Quite obviously, he was at the tactical disadvantage. His weapons systems were pretty much shot, energy was still low, transformation cog was broken, subspace access was cut off and the terrain was totally unfamiliar. For now, he would have to swallow his pride and travel with this group until either he came across something better or found a way out of this place.

"So," He asked. "Now what?"

Slipstream rose and dusted himself off as best he could. "We get moving, we've been here for too long. There's a fortified village not too far away. We can barter for a place to stay and rest up, and see about some weapons for you."  
"Barter?" Fastbreak asked curiously.  
"Yup, it's the economy of the place." Longwatch explained. "There are folks here who've decided to make the best of a bad deal and carve out a niche for themselves, taking over buildings, setting up shop and settling down. Heck, there's even a handful of second-generation Pit-dwellers."

"We however, wish to escape." Crosscut interrupted. "There are bands of us who seek only that. With some we have alliance, others…"  
"Shoot first, ask questions later." Coil finished.


End file.
